The high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, assured this Thursday (17) that “bombing in some parts of the border” of eastern Ukraine has started. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said pro-Russian forces had bombed a kindergarten in what he called a “major provocation”.
Faced with this information, Kiev and its Western allies fear Russia is trying to create a pretext to start the war, given reports of frontline bombings in Ukraine’s long-running conflict with Moscow-backed separatists.
For now, reports from pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainians about the episode are conflicting, but both suggest a more serious incident than is often reported in the Donbass region.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss tweeted: “Reports of alleged abnormal Ukrainian military activity in Donbass are a blatant attempt by the Russian government to manufacture pretexts for an invasion. This comes straight from the Kremlin playbook.”
According to Reuters, a senior Ukrainian government source said the bombing at the line of contact with Russian-backed separatist forces was beyond the scale of ceasefire violations routinely reported during the conflict. “Not typical. Sounds a lot like a tease.”
An agency photographer in the town of Kadiivka in Ukraine’s Luhansk region heard the sound of some artillery fire coming from the line of contact, but was unable to determine the details. Kiev accused the rebels of dropping bombs in several places, including some that hit a kindergarten and others that hit a school where students had to flee to the basement.
Video footage released by Ukrainian police showed a hole in a brick wall in a room littered with debris and children’s toys. Another source shows emergency responders escorting young children and teachers from a building.
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